


Puppy Love

by running_in_circles



Series: Of Roses and Of Lions [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Dogs, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Jealousy, M/M, Pets, Plans For The Future, Tea, World Meeting (Hetalia)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25942543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/running_in_circles/pseuds/running_in_circles
Summary: May 2016. England wants a dog. India suspects his reasons are less than pure. And of course, France is involved.
Relationships: England/Female India (Hetalia), England/India (Hetalia), France/Germany (Hetalia)
Series: Of Roses and Of Lions [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/261634
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Puppy Love

“I want a dog,” says England, leaning against the outer wall of the conference centre. It is grimy and leaf-strewn in this corner from running into a patch of sycamores that edge out from the park on the other side of the fence.

“Okay.”

He looks back at India, half-severe, half-petulant. The weather is oddly balmy for Brussels in spring, and he is in shirtsleeves, already wilting from their first full day of talks, and it only lunchtime.

“No, really. I want a dog.” His eyes are fixed broodily on a distant couple throwing sticks for their over-excited Alsatian under the distant dense foliage at the other side of the park’s perimeter.

“Okay.”

“I want us to get a dog.”

India sighs patiently. “How could we keep a dog? We couldn’t possibly live together. And a dog wouldn’t like to get on a long-distance flight or two, six times a year.”

“It wouldn’t be six times a year,” England protests, “It would be three. He can stay with one of us for a year-long stretch at a time. And then at Christmas each year we do the swap. Three flights a year for him and equal time with the dog for us both.”

“I think the dog would find that confusing,” India admits mildly, scanning the speckled wall behind her for a patch that is clear of bird excrement and leaf debris before leaning against it by England.

“He’d get used to it,” England insists.

His lower lip is nearly about to jut out in that sweet way that he hardly ever allows it to. It’s a look India cannot resist, so she pushes him a little further.

“The dog would be lonely. Every year he’d make friends with the other animals on his street and have to say goodbye to them and move to the other side of the world,” she parries.

“ _Our_ dog wouldn’t be lonely,” says England, in an injured tone. “He’d have the best parents in the world.”

“He’d think his parents are divorced.”

“Divorced parents don’t travel twice the world’s circumference every year in total to see each other.”

India giggles a little. “Maybe he’ll think he’s in the midst of a long-drawn out custody battle. Or that he’s the prize in the world’s slowest game of Pass the Parcel.”

“Well, okay. Okay. I’ll take him full-time then,” He switches his plain porcelain conference mug of tea to the other hand agitatedly and positively glares out at the couple and their happy Alsatian. “You can speak to him every day when we video call anyway.”

“I don’t think I can speak dog,” India warns him, taking one of his arms away from where they are folded across his chest and skirting a finger down one of his veins, prominent against his skin.

“Everyone can speak dog,” England promises seriously.

This, India thinks, is a misconception he is under simply because England happens to be a particularly fluent and skilled speaker of _dog_. “No,” she corrects him, “ _you_ can speak dog. The dog might not even like me. They don’t follow us all around like they do you, you know.”

She is going on for three and a half years with England, two of them properly. Even if he weren’t as fond of taking her on long, rural walks as he is, it would still have been nigh on impossible to miss the animal magnetism England exudes. Cats, rabbits and even foxes have held still on such outings when he approached quietly to pet them, and on good days he can even charm down some of his less capricious birds from the garden fence to sit in a gentle fist so India can stroke them. 

It is something of the opposite to the effect he has on people. India vaguely remembers Scotland telling her at a state dinner about a century ago that England was far too prickly and prone to invasion in childhood for any nations or humans so like him, so he had to make do with flora and fauna. Whilst India had suspected that Scotland’s recollection of the period was not much less hazy than England’s, there is no denying the latter’s people-repelling or animal-attracting skills. Perhaps the greatest tribute to this, however, is dogs. Dogs’ eyes followed England wherever they smelt him in parks, little bodies straining against leashes, with those running free sprinting up to him to stand up on hind legs to demand attention. Giving in and petting them seemed to bring equal joy to both England and dog.

India makes herself tune back into what England is saying. “Of course our dog would like you. You’d have picked him out with me, for starters.”

When India only hums into her own porcelain conference mug in reply, he continues undeterred, kicking the winged seeds of sycamores with a buffed shoe.

“I want a slobbery one,” he warns, and his petulant lower lip threatens to emerge again, “ One that likes walks.”

“They’re all like that.”

“They aren’t!” says England, scandalised, “I mean I don’t want a chihuahua, or something. I want a retriever, or a Labrador, or...or…”

The sun slides away from its position directly overhead, and the warmth that had filtered through the canopy of sycamores to their grimy back corner of Belgium’s glossy, chromium conference centre fades. India shivers a little reflexively, and draws closer to England, who has no sensible ideas about temperature.

He obliges absent-mindedly, tucking an arm around her waist so she can lean more fully into the warmth of his neck, apparently still thinking of ideal dog-breeds for their pet.

“Or an Alsatian?” India offers, smirking as she rests her chin on his shoulder.

England’s brows draw together almost immediately, and he glowers at the couple in the park, now leashing their dog and walking towards an exit.

“Don’t see what we’d want an Alsatian for,” he mutters.

“For the same reason you decided about two weeks ago that we urgently need a dog?” India tells him, more than asks him.

No-one she has ever met before England, India thinks, nor anyone she would likely ever meet after, can splutter as well as he can. She wonders how he does it so beautifully, so indignantly.

“India,” he says, mightily affronted, “I want a dog because I love you,” he tells her, completely straight-faced, and she guesses that he can say such words without cringing only because they are not his entire justification, “It’s been three years and counting.”

India is laughing into his shirt before he has finished. “Really? And not even one little bit because of Trudi?”

England snorts. “Not one little bit. Alsatians wouldn’t like airplanes, that’s all.”

Two weeks ago, England had phoned her to tell her that France and Germany had adopted an Alsatian puppy named Trudi. France had apparently introduced her to England at a meeting about the Common Agricultural Policy. India is aware that France knows England as well as she does, and sure enough, Germany had admitted quietly to her yesterday that England had never been known to be so docile during an adjustment of his most hated EU policy as when he had Trudi snoring gently on his lap. Germany had had fatherly concerns for his puppy meeting England at the latter’s most stroppy, but neither India nor France, apparently, is surprised that the puppy won.

Nonetheless, even France had not bargained for how quickly Trudi and England had become attached to each other, and in the few days India has been in Brussels, she suspects she has caught more than a few careful looks from France when Trudi has come over to remake her daily acquaintance with England. And even if England silently adores Trudi, it has, if anything, seemed to increased his shortness with her parents when she is not there.

England sighs into the top of her head as India leans into his collarbone. India presses as much of her face as she can into his warm shoulder, and England plays with a few strands of her hair absently, until –

“France and Germany can have a dog,” he says quietly, despite vehemently denying the relevance of this a few minutes ago. She pulls back to look at him, but he is looking intensively into the dregs of his mug.

“France and Germany can live together,” India reminds him patiently.

England shakes his head, “They don’t really live together,” he insists, “it’s just that they stay together in the Paris flat or the Berlin flat for a few months at a time and then drive over to the other. That’s not really living together,” he presses, before adding: “I’m sure Trudy gets carsick.”

“It’s more than what we can do,” India tells him gently. Three years of long-haul flights have been expensive, and tiring, and India’s neck had ached for months that time she had fallen asleep at her laptop waiting at the gate for her connection.

“Yeah,” says England, quieter than ever. His voice is sad enough that she turns to him again and rubs the space between his chest and stomach.

“Give it another few decades,” she promises, waiting for his smile, “It used to take over a month for you to visit me. Now it takes a day or two. One day, it may well be a matter of hours for us too.” When this doesn’t shift the pensive look on his face, she adds, “And then, if you still want, we can get a dog.”

He quirks a corner of his mouth at this.

“It doesn’t mean I love you any less,” she reminds him softly.

It is rare, she knows, and odd, for two nations to love each other for long across such distances. Flings, and nights together, and a couple of decades, maybe. But all the nations she has watched couple up for good have usually been across a border or two. They are nothing more than the whims and the culture and the language of their people, and she imagines that is difficult to sustain communication, let along love, when similar social mores for apologies and ‘thank you’s and affection are not shared. She thinks she sees something that will last in France and Germany, who have been entangled one way or another for all of the latter’s life and are if anything only merging closer happily. But the meaning of distance has never stayed fixed, and even if she is perhaps too close to comment on herself and England, she knows what her answer would be, truthfully, if asked.

“That’s exactly why I’m in the seediest, shadiest corner of this conference centre where Belgian teens probably sell weed by night; to stand here with you,” she adds, taking back his arm again to hold.

England presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Bollocks,” he says easily, “You’re here because I packed the good tea and you forgot to.”

India chooses to rise above this, and take a dignified sip in silence of England’s tea from the mug she stole with England from the conference centre.

They hear the nearby happy bark of a young dog.

England sighs, and checks his watch. “We should head back in.”

India keeps his arm as they walk back around the centre to the main entrance in companionable silence, but lets it drop when they approach the front doors at the same time as France and Germany. She thinks she sees a knowing look in France’s eye at the two of them emerging from the trees together, though. England is still touting the line that they sleep together sometimes at conferences, when they both can be bothered, and that it is nothing more than that. Anything less believable or anything more interesting, and it would be worth talking about. In any case, he tells her it matters little to him, and she knows it matters nothing to her. Perhaps one day, there would only be a couple of hours between wanting England by her side and him being there, and she could get him a dog and they would be as open about their relationship as France and Germany. Until then, they are happy in their own way.

Germany’s cheeks are red with pleased exertion, one arm around France and the other looped around Trudi’s leash, fresh from throwing her sticks in the park. France says something to him and presses a kiss to Germany’s temple, just above his ear, They smile at her and England as they level with each other.

Trudi yaps in pleasure. India will grudgingly admit that the puppy is a _delight_. Constantly happy and eager to make friends with everyone, and yet remarkably sensitive to when to keep quiet and equally willing to nap on either of her parents’ feet at those moments accordingly. As she passes England, she strains on her leash, and Germany loosens it so she can reach to nibble cheerfully on England’s shoelaces. England, for his part, immediately squats to ruffle her ears.

Eventually, both Germany’s and England’s timekeeping sensibilities push the four of them inside, though not before England says snidely, “Careful, France, or she’ll think she has three parents.”

France pointedly ignores this, and leads both Germany and Trudi into their meeting room for the afternoon. England makes to follow, but India catches his arm. “Behave,” she tells him firmly.

England winks at her and follows them in, clicking the door firmly shut after him.

India sighs, ignores the sense – or conviction, rather – of foreboding she feels, and goes further into the building to her own meeting.

She is here alongside many of the European Union to make adjustments to their mutual tariffs structure. Strictly speaking, she does not need to be here. Her delegates and civil servants know what they want and know what they need, but she has decided to follow them here because she has long since learnt to be wary of European underhandedness. She knows and likes that her delegates will refrain from rudeness, and perhaps even forthrightness, and so she has assigned herself all of the snarling to do, if any is necessary. And she gets to see England.

This afternoon she is entirely with humans, whilst England, France and Germany are shut away with Belgium to hammer out internal disagreements about their side of the tariffs with their humans. She sighs as she settles down with her delegates. There is work to be done ahead, and work she on the whole enjoys. Tonight, she and England will mingle separately and politely with the rest at dinner and then, England will spend all night in her hotel bed. India breathes deeply through her nose, and gets to it.

***

She meets England at the main entrance when the largest conference room has been set for dinner. She is pleased with her day’s work, and the results of her snarling. They walk in, carefully one after the other, and it is then that she hears the story that she knows she would.

Neither France nor England remembers how the argument began, predictably. What she does gather is fact is that Trudi, tired out from her afternoon sprints in the park, had insisted on settling on England’s lap, predictably. England had told France that Trudi liked him better, predictably. Perhaps most irritatingly predictably of all, the only way either of them had been able to see to settle this to satisfaction was to stand at opposite sides of the room, set Trudi in the middle and call and coo at her simultaneously until she came one of them. _Of course_ , Trudi had taken them both in in a look, whimpered sadly and run straight into Germany’s arms.

“Why?” she asks England, when they find themselves next to each other at a queue in the buffet. “Why couldn’t you behave?”

“Because France couldn’t behave,” he tells her simply, with a look of pure innocence she has never accepted.

“You upset Trudi,” she points out, knowing this might actually give England pause.

“Trudi's tough. And she’s got nothing to complain about, really. She’s just very well-loved.” England assures her.

“I’ll give you well-loved,” India mutters grumpily.

“Will you?” England snickers, “Tonight?”

India stamps on his foot.

is

***

Later that night, when England is snuggled against her on the scratchy hotel bed and she is running a hand through his hair, she says, “No more shenanigans with Trudi tomorrow, okay? Leave the poor dog alone. And her owners, for that matter.”

England pulls her arm around him tighter.

“Promise?”

England sighs. “Promise.” A beat, and then: “I’ll save it for our future dog.”

“Good.”

“Maybe dogs.”

“ _Dogs_?” This pulls India up short. “How many do you want?”

“Well, we can start with the one. But as you say, when they invent teleportation, or whatever, we can have as many as we like quite easily, can’t we?”

“Hmpf,” India says, not disagreeably.

“And how do you feel about cats?”

India muffles him with a pillow.


End file.
